Tag Archives: fiona hall

Liberal Democrat MEPs have spent years at the forefront of plans to cut the cost of using your mobile phone while travelling in the EU.

There is a crucial vote coming up on 27 February where a plan to abolish fees for incoming calls this year and data roaming fees by 2016 is being discussed. This isn’t quite fast enough for Liberal Democrat MEPs who have put down an amendment bringing it forward to the start of the Summer holidays in 2015:

With effect from 1 July 2015, roaming providers shall not levy any surcharge in comparison to the charges for mobile

The Journal, which publishes in the North East, quotes Nissan’s chief operating officer, Toshiyuki Shiga, who says that, as a foreign investor, he hopes that the UK will remain as an EU member. He claims that if the UK decided to leave the EU, the company could potentially experience two ‘obstacles’, namely, UK-specific regulations and standards, and EU imposed import duty.

Nissan’s UK manufacturing plant, which employs over 6000 people, is based in Sunderland.

Yesterday, MEPs and national ministers in Brussels agreed on the new EU research and innovation programme “Horizon 2020”.

Horizon 2020 is structured around three ‘pillars’;

‘Excellence in the science base’ – aims to strengthen the EU’s world-class excellence in science, particularly through a significant strengthening of the European Research Council, which mainly focuses on frontier research

‘Creating industrial leadership and competitive frameworks’ – aims to support business research and innovation. Actions will cover: increasing investment in enabling industrial technologies and support for innovation in SMEs with high growth potential

Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament Fiona Hall has responded to former Chancellor Nigel Lawson’s call for Britain to leave the EU.

Writing in the Independent, she spelled out some of the economic consequences of such a move:

We are currently on the cusp of a game-changing trade deal between the EU and the US, which will bring billions of pounds to the British economy and create tens of thousands of jobs. The US has also made it quite clear that our ‘special relationship’ would cease to be special were the UK outside the EU. Major trade agreements with India and

Lib Dem MEPs have welcomed the Coalition Government’s commitment to ensure that cuts to European funding from 2014 onwards will be shared in a fair manner across the UK.

The Coalition Government has announced that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be subjected to an equal percentage cut of around 5% compared to the current 2007-2017 EU funding levels.

MEPs and national governments are currently negotiating the next long-term EU budget for 2014-2020. Although a final deal has yet to be reached, the EU’s budget is expected to be cut in real-terms for the first time in its history.
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Catherine Bearder, the Liberal Democrat European spokesperson on international trade, has welcomed the EU trade deal with Singapore as a potential gateway for the UK’s insurance and banking sector into the Asian market.

This free trade deal with Singapore will bring huge benefits to the UK’s financial services sector in particular. Negotiating as a block of 27 countries with the biggest single market in the world has given Brussels the necessary weight to insist that European banks will enjoy a level playing field with US competitors. Britain on its own would have struggled to achieve